﻿Transports contribute 35% to air pollution: moot told

KARACHI: Component Manager Component Implementation Unit (CIU) – Sindh Yar Muhammed said 35 percent of carbon emission was unfortunately due to unmaintained transports being run in the city because of acute shortage of buses.

He said while speaking during Consultative Workshop on Sustainable Urban Transport Policy Guidelines jointly organized by Transport Department, CIU – Sindh, United Nations Development Program and the Institution of Engineering Pakistan (IEP), Karachi center.

All the stakeholders were called to call attention towards the things that could be added to the newly developed policy guidelines for Sindh urban transport before it is submitted to the Sindh government for approval.

Yar Muhammed said that four corridors of Bus Rapid Transit system were being worked on and hopefully they would soon be erected for a far better transportation system than present in the city that deserved more than that.

“Asian Development Bank and federal government had already approved grant for Red Line and Green Line bus services respectively, while Yellow Line and Brown Line bus services would be constructed by public private partnership and Sindh government respectively,” he said.

He informed the participants in the workshop that Sindh High Court had issued notice to Chingchis which would soon be banned.

Vice Chairman Supreme Council of All Pakistan Transporters Bashir Ahmed Haleemi said regrettably the maintenance of recently relaunched government-run CNG buses had become worse than the much older minibuses.

“Corruption has plagued government departments that is why, its projects fail to bring fruit. UTS, CNG and other buses were such examples,” he said.

Chairman Sindh Bus Owners Association Mir Afzal Khan raised the question that how expensive and lucrative buses could be run in the city while burning of buses was a usual thing faced by transporters.

He said that there was no bus stand setup by the Sindh government for intercity buses in the city to facilitate transporters. Consequently, bus stand mafia charged their desired fees from them which was very high.

Vice Chairman Oil Tankers Association Shams Shehwani demanded oil tankers should be provided proper stand in Razakabad. Currently, the tankers used to stand in Sheerin Jinnah Colony where insecurity was high and thefts were common.

Project Manager PAKSTRAN Saleem Janjua said the PAKSTRAN (Pakistan Sustainable Transport) was a US$ 7.8m project initiated by UNDP to reduce emission and to elevate public transport to such a level that people prefer public transport over private.

“It was started in July 2014 and its time duration is 5 years but I think that we would need 3 extra years for better and concrete implementation,” he said.